


Cavalcade Apocalyptic

by theblindtorpedo



Category: And Then There Were None (TV 2015)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Codependency, Cooking, Domestic, Gardens & Gardening, Hunters & Hunting, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Internalized Homophobia, Misogyny, Multi, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-08
Updated: 2016-04-08
Packaged: 2018-05-31 23:00:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6490783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theblindtorpedo/pseuds/theblindtorpedo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of a society-collapsing pandemic Philip Lombard wanders the English countryside. He soon comes across the old Owen house and its wretched new residents. Not everyone is taking the end of the world as well as he.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Philip Lombard I - Present

**Author's Note:**

> Things start out pretty nice and everything just goes downhill from here folks.
> 
> (Also I have no plan on how/when this will get regular updates. I have a general idea of plot although it is very nebulous, but I hope you enjoy the pieces as they come.)

His eternal companion, the sun shone in a clear azure sky over the countryside through which Philip walked. In the distance were a few white-washed cottages, his short term destination for the purpose of ransacking and shelter for as long as he chose. Had he wanted (or needed) he could have cut through the verdant meadow, charmingly overgrown in the months since the End, but Philip was in no hurry. So he stuck to the dusty brown path, kicking up rocks in his wake and enjoying the heat on his face.

He saw the figures before they noticed him; their bodies were turned defensively to the side, toward the main paved road. If they were to have visitors (expected or otherwise) it would stand to reason they would likely not have emerged from the woods as Philip had done. There were no cars on the road, but otherwise the scene was remarkably intact. No morbid piles of skeletons where the healthy had dumped the sick for their bodies to be picked clean by vultures. No remnants of broken glass or wood from fights over remaining resources. No charred ruins of pyres where people had tried to cleanse their belongings of contagion. No car wrecks, the result of entire populations fleeing the wrecked cities that reeked of death. This highway was smooth and clean. The End had been kinder to the countryside, at least from an external view. If Philip walked far enough he could almost believe nothing had happened, no crippling pandemic, no collapse of society. He liked it this way. In his opinion, there was no use mourning the past. All that mattered was current survival.

The first man was elderly and stout, sitting on a stump with a shotgun at his feet, his eyes trained on the road. The other man was bent over on his knees in the dirt, an incongrous wide brimmed woman’s beach hat guarding his face from the sun as he dug irrigation channels around the plants in his care. A plethora of gardening tools lay at his side.

Philip snuck a hand under his jacket, gripping the pistol at his hip, and with the other he hailed them.

The first man sprung to his feet. He proceeded to cock the shotgun with remarkable speed for his apparent age. He was grey haired with deep lines in his face; Philip guessed he had passed at least his seventieth year. There was weariness in the set of his shoulders, but a firm sense of duty in his grip. Philip lifted an eyebrow in admiration and smiled in what he hoped appeared a conciliatory way. The other, the gardener, had snatched up the long rake at his side and now crouched with a white knuckled grip on the handle.

“General John Gordon MacArthur, at your service.” Philip couldn’t help but snort in amusement at the formality. “And DI William Blore. Who are you?”

“Philip Lombard. No title.”

“Remove your hand from your weapon,” the gardener, Blore it must be, demanded.

Philip shook his head. “Now I don’t mean to bring us all up on the wrong foot, but that would hardly be fair would it? But I can promise I mean you know harm.”

“Neither we towards you if you speak truly,” MacArthur said, “Come forward Mr. Lombard. Let us see you clearer.”

Philip walked until he stood at the edge of the garden. He could see a vein throbbing at the base of Blore’s neck. MacArthur eyed him up and down, taking in the lack of shirt, the plain brown pants ending in boots still wet from last night’s rain, the healing burns along his left arm, and the small muslin sack tied around his hips. The pistol was the only clean part of Philip Lombard.

“You’ve had a rough time lad.”

“Haven’t we all.”

MacArthur prodded his shotgun against Philip’s prominent ribcage. “When’s the last time you’ve had a meal. A real meal.”

“Can’t say I remember.”

Blore’s eyes widened in horror at the exchange. “General! You cannot possibly be considering-”

“Hush, Bill.” MacArthur let his gun drop to the ground. “Well, Mr. Lombard, you've caught us at a good time. We’re almost done here. May I invite you to come along with us for at least the afternoon and perhaps the evening? We’ve just picked up a new girl this morning, so we’ll have quite the party, this’ll bring our motley crew to ten.”

Blore muttered something about “strays” under his breath. MacArthur frowned.

“Don’t mind him. He’s just put out that he has to share his produce.”

“Understandable. You seem to have worked very hard on it,” Philip commented.

“That I did. And you had better enjoy it if you're scrounging off our table,” Blore spat, but curiously flushed.

“Well, with Mrs. Rodger’s cooking I’m sure he will,” MacArthur said. “You know it is awfully hot out here. Shall we go in now and see what she has concocted for lunch? Mrs. Brent has told me the new girl brought along a jar of jam. God bless.”

He picked up the shotgun again, this time tucking it under his arm, and began to make towards the same cottages Philip had been eyeing before.

“Walk ahead of me,” Blore commanded. Philip acquiesced, but as they walked eventually the surly ex-detective brought himself up to an equal pace.

“His entire family died in the plague,” Blore whispered and gestured to General MacArthur who was entering the house. “He’s too lenient, terrible watchman. Not what you’d expect from a soldier. Problem is he’s given up. Acts like we’re in some retirement community instead of a bunch of no good scavengers thrown together by circumstance. The way he goes on you’d almost believe the world hadn’t ended.”

“All things considered, sounds to me like you have a pretty good situation here.”

“With this horrible lot? No. They’ll stab you in the back the moment you turn around. Myself included. Perhaps you’ll do well here since you've been invited in you're pretty much guaranteed to stay. I don't condone this picking up of every Tom, Dick, and Harry who wanders in here, but we could use another young heathen. You better be good at cutting wood.”

“I can do what needs to be done. Do much wood cutting yourself, Tubs?”

Blore wrinkled his nose and indignantly swept past him through the open doorway. From deep inside came a loud shouting, a braying laugh, a horrified gasp. Philip grinned to himself, and fingered the trigger on his gun. Finally, some amusement.


	2. Philip Lombard II - Present

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Phillip finds a new place to sleep, helps fix dinner, and finds Anthony Marston’s chatter refreshing. Vera most decidedly does not.

The lunch turned out to be a simple two slices of lightly toasted wheat bread covered in jam and a glass of apple juice. Philip scowled at it. With the turning of the seasons, his diet had consisted mainly of apples picked from gardens where the trees had been left to blossom after their owners had gone.

“I was expecting a bit more.”

“You’re an ingrate, that’s what you are,” the middleaged woman introduced as Emily Brent said. “But what can I expect just look at you! Indecent. Where are your clothes? I shall have to make Mrs. Rodgers make you some immediately.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, clothing has been in rather a short supply.”

“That’s no excuse for lack of propriety. Miss Claythorne here arrived fully clothed.”

This was true. The young woman standing by the window wore a striking green slip, a welcome respite from the boring neutral tones of the others he had met. The sheer dress waved about her legs and allowed one to see a few inches of pale thigh where it rose above the knee.

“More’s a pity for us,” Phillip said, tilting his head, but Vera refused to meet his eyes, only dropping her lip in disgust. Mrs. Brent immediately flew to defend her honor.

“How dare you- I shall . . . I shall not sit here and suffer such ribald talk. I shall sojourn to the sitting room and if you are of a mind to be decent you may follow.”

“Don’t count on it being soon.”

Mrs. Brent scooped up the knitting with a dramatic clatter, glaring at the other two men present. She placed a companionable pat to Vera’s shoulder, urging her to follow, but only received a shake of the head. Mrs. Brent clucked disapprovingly.

Her absence left the sitting room feeling lighter, but tension still crackled between the three inhabitants.

“Well hasn’t this been a funny show. You know I am glad both of you showed up when you did. It’s been an awful bore with these old goats.” Anthony Marston's golden blond hair against the dark red chair was reminiscent of a jewellery store window. He held an unlit cigarette in his teeth.

“I thought MacArthur said there were ten here. Myself, you, Mrs. Brent, Miss Claythorne, MacArthur, Blore, that woman who brought in the food: counts as seven. Where are the rest? I was under the impression this would be a society affair.”

“So was Mrs. Brent. She’s only short with you since she thought the General was going to stay for conversation, but time waits for no man; you saw how he rushed off after introductions. The General and I do most of the hunting and as I’ve already caught us some, dare-I-say, fine rabbits for dinner, I’m off the hook if I like so I can take my leisure for a few hours here. The Judge is residing in his room, Doctor Armstrong . . . who cares where he is, probably off consorting in corners with Blore, and the other is the butler, if you can call it that. Mr. and Mrs. Rodgers are the sole remaining servants from this estate. Easy to see how those two survived, you saw the woman, they look like ghosts don’t you think? Probably already lived through the bubonic plague.”

“Then that’s a testament to their strength,” Vera said. “Survival.”

“You think so? You think you’re strong for still walking the earth?

“I prefer to have some faith in my own facility, yes. And as it would benefit me to stay among you, I also intend to contribute to the house as needs are called for,” she turned steely eyes on the two men. “I shall prove myself in time.”

“No need, sweetheart. You are already doing wonderfully,” Marston said, taking another bite of the toast. “Excellent jam. I haven’t had mulberry in ages.”

“I disagree, Miss Claythorne,” Philip said, “I’m of the opinion that those of us still here are the most cowardly. Where’d the jam come from? Nicked it off some dying lady’s pantry? Stepped over the rotting body of bakery owner after breaking through the storage room windows?”

“It was my employer’s.”

“I’m not hearing no to robbery.”

“I was a governess. The mother, the child and . . . the Uncle. They were the entire family, all carried off by the Sickness.”

“She calls it the Sickness, how quaint!” Marston took a fake puff of the cigarette. “No flair for the dramatic?”

“Our lives are dramatic enough.”

“No they’re not. I am absolutely bored out of my skull,” Marston whined. “I’m only here by hostage situation, you know? The damned men accosted me and took apart my car. My beautiful car! They only let me out when they’d disassembled it so much I couldn't conceivably put it back together again.”

“That’s a shame,” Philip said with obvious lack of remorse and downed the rest of the apple juice with a wince. Too much sugar. Marston shrugged.

“I don’t hate them for it. We do what we must. I was just trying to get out of the City, by August it was getting awfully riotous there. No fun at all with people dying in the streets. I’d made it out early though with only these to show for it.” Marston patted at the deep gashes along his face, jagged scars running from eye to chin. The juxtaposition with his white smile and otherwise boyish face left him looking macabre and clownish. “At least I kept my beautiful eyes and limbs, can’t say my opponents were so lucky. How’d you get yours?” He pointed at the burn running up Philip’s arm.

“I stole jugs of water. They came after me. Threw fire.”

“But you got the water in the end with only that? Very lucky. Hope you didn’t waste all the water having to heal yourself up again.”

“Thankfully no. Even still have a small flask left over, but now there’s a camp of three men probably dying of thirst about twenty five miles west of here.”

“You’re all animals,” Vera whispered.

“You’re one of us,” Philip said.

“I’m nothing like you.”

“If you say so.”

\------

Marston grew tired of the wretched reminiscing and declared he would use the rest of his leisure time for a nap. Then Miss Claythorne had immediately excused herself to set up her own room with her belongings. Lombard’s own room was in the stable, but the semblance of hospitality was held by the black suited man who had led him to his new lodgings. Thomas Rodgers looked like the human equivalent of an overcast sky before a thunderstorm, a frenetic danger hovering behind pale exterior. The butler had laid blankets and a pillow a top two bales of hay and a full pitcher of water, and a champerpot lay on the floor. The pillow held the tell tale dark stain of blood on its case; the previous owner must have bled out in his bed. Not a victim of the plague then. Those victims died convulsing as their brains self destructed. Even if this were a sick man’s bedding, Philip knew he was immune, he had slept on graves before.

“It’s all we had left. But it was the old Mr. Owen’s from the main house, so the best for you, sir.”

Philip turned the pillow over in his hands. “He didn’t die of the Indian Death?”

“Not that I can tell, sir.”

“How’d he die then?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“But, Marston told me you were the servants here?”

“Yes. That is what we told him.”

“. . . all right, thank you.”

Rodgers bowed, but he did not make a move to leave.

“They’ll be expecting you to skin Mr. Marston’s rabbits. They’re hanging to dry on the back porch if you’ll come with me.”

The rabbits were already beheaded, their carcasses had been pulled from the string and now lay on a wide towel, a bucket of washing water and an empty barrel for their meat. Blore’s face was scrunched in concentration. The knife shook and slicked in his hand.

“Nice to see you again,” Philip said, sitting down next to him. Blore grunted and threw a rabbit at him, not taking his eyes off his work. Philip had been handed a knife by Rodgers before, but he laid this down now, and instead picked up his own. Without words the two men made an obscene duet of snipping and cutting and slapping sounds. When all the rabbits were dressed they picked up the barrel and carried it into the kitchen where the Rodgers scurried forward to take it from their hands and shooed them out. The sun had just started to dim fractionally.

“Run off with yourself now, Lombard,” Blore said, “It’ll probably be around three hours until dinner.”

“You gonna be there?”

“I’ve got to eat don’t I?”

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, thanks for reading this short beginning! Please leave a comment if you can, I'd really appreciate it. I'm also very open to reader input for this story sovif theres an inter-character dynamic and/or action situation you'd like to see in future chapters let me know. ❤️


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